TJ's space

Day 59 – Sunday Nov 16, 2008 – Honolulu, Hawaii

Back in the USA! Our tour today takes us around the island of Oahu. From the Aloha Tower in the center of Honolulu, through Waikiki, around Diamond Head, up the east coast and around to the great surfing beaches of the north coast. In addition to the interesting geology of this volcanic island, we see the beaches where several movies were filmed include Bond 007 movies and others. The south coast has some of the most expensive real estate in the state. Much of it was developed years ago by Henry J Kaiser. The east coast is bordered by a steep mountain range which is actually the remnants of the inside rim of an ancient caldera. We stop at the Kualoa Ranch for lunch. This is a former sugar cane plantation which is now a day ranch for horse riding and tours of the 20 some movie sets which remain on the property. A very beautiful setting. Next are the three famous surfing beaches of the north shore – Sunset, the Banzai Pipeline and Waimea Bay. Then down through the center of Oahu to the Dole Plantation. Our driver explains that 2008 is the last season for Dole pineapples and Delmonte too. Both companies are closing their pineapple operations in Hawaii and moving to the Philippines and Indonesia where labor is cheaper.

We have dinner by ourselves tonight for the first time. Our tablemates are off in the city somewhere.

Entertainment tonight is the movie Mamma Mia. Tired as we are we go to that.

Honolulu – This is the beach where the famous love scene in “From Here to Eternity” was shot.

Honolulu – This is the love of my life. Isn’t she cute? Oh, and behind her is Sunset Beach one of the three surfing beaches on the north coast of Oahu. Surf’s down today but often reach 50 feet here.

Honolulu – Not a typical tourist picture but the family photographer is a quilter so what do you expect?

Day 60 – Nov 17, 2008 – Honolulu Hawaii Day 2

This evening we go to a luau on the west side of the island. It rains very hard on the way there but when we get there it conveniently lets up. The luau has quite a few pre-dinner activities starting with Mai-Tai’s. They have singers in one area, flower-wreath making, spear throwing, canoeing, coconut preparation demos, a hukilau (net fishing) and of course the underground pig roasting. Dinner consists of a salad and a Hawaiian dish of spiced raw salmon called lomi-lomi, poi, pineapple, rice, the roast pig, mahi-mahi and chicken plus several desserts. We try everything and liked it all. Why do most people not like poi? Maybe it was doctored up for us but it was fairly bland. The pig was absolutely delicious. It did start raining just as we finished dinner but they had handed out ponchos in anticipation of that and everything was fine. We sat through the shows in comfort as the rain started and stopped constantly during the performances.

Tonight the hotel staff put on the evening entertainment. The Filipinos did some traditional dances which were very reminiscent of Spanish dances much like the Central and South American folklorios we have seen. The Indonesians performed a folk story and also a song performed with a local wood instrument where each person played a different note much like a bell-ringing concert. It was well done.

Honolulu – At the luau, Elaine helps man an outrigger canoe.

Honolulu – The hula dancers and Hawaiian royalty prepare for the opening of the roasting pit to remove the pig for dinner. Covered with palm leaves and banana leaves the pig was brought out and paraded around on its way to the kitchen. The aroma was fabulous.

Honolulu – The luau was served outside. In the background is the stage where after-dinner singing and dancing performances continued. Fortunately it waited until dinner was finished to rain, but rain it did as you can see by the ponchos furnished by Paradise Cove and being worn by the diners. Didn’t bother anybody, the show went on and. We all enjoyed it.

Day 61 – Tuesday, Nov 18, 2008 – Lahaina, Maui

This is a short day in port as we sail at 2:00pm for San Diego. Our last tour takes us to the Oceanarium on Maui which is the largest in the eastern Pacific. It is a very nice display with five different buildings focusing on the reef, marine mammals, Hawaiian fishing, sea turtles and sharks. The other stop is at a working sugar cane plantation which is transitioning to coffee next season.

Elaine takes the initiative to begin packing today. She gets three suitcases packed leaving only my stuff to do. We decide to ship at least three suitcases by Fedex. Since the airlines began charging for extra and overweight bags, the cost to ship them is only a few dollars more with no weight limitations – and the ship takes care of getting the bags to Fedex. So we will have only two bags to schlep through the airports.

The HAL Chorale has its last rehearsal today. It sounds good although a couple of entrances are still hesitant. Tonight is the finals for Trivia. They set the mainshowroom up similar to the semifinals with the Jeopardy-style podiums on he stage. There are four of us in the finals representing our teams. The host says he has prepared 150 questions on slips of paper in a glass bowl from which he will pick 30 questions for us. If no one rings in on a question he will pick another question until 30 questions have at least been attempted. He picks the first question and reads it. He is met with blank stares from the contestants and nobody rings in. He picks an alternate question and again nobody rings in. These questions are so obscure that no normal person would be able to answer them. After a couple more questions, somebody finally rings in, gets it wrong and no one else cares to try. But every once in a while a reasonable question is posed and one of us gets it right. By the 28^th question the host’s podium is piled high with little slips of paper and the bowl is almost empty – he is getting nervous. But he makes it through the 30^th question and leaves the panel with scores of 500, 400, 400 and 300 for the final question. Like Jeopardy we can wager up to the amount we have. I have 400. I should have known that the final question would be unanswerable like so many of the others. The guy with 500 wagers only 200 while the rest of us wagered everything. So he wins a bag full of logo-ed items from the ship’s Store for his team.

Entertainment is a comedian who focuses on shipboard life and old people. Good thing we can still laugh at ourselves.

Day 62 – Wednesday, Nov 19, 2008 – Thinking About Packing

Today is my turn to pack so I get my suitcase and the garment bag done. This gives us three days to live on what we have left out and see if we inadvertently packed something we will need.

Regional talks today are on the Ocean Liners of the past and on Seabirds. Neither of these are terribly interesting so we hit the casino and donate more money to the gods of gambling. Another formal dress night tonight (no, it’s not the last one either). There is pre-dinner cocktail party for those with cabins on the left side of the ship. Being on the right side we are not invited. We think the Captain is splitting his traditional Farewell party into two days so he can have his cocktail party in a smaller, more comfortable venue than the big show lounge.

Entertainment tonight is a very good baritone/pianist.

Day 63 – Thursday, Nov 20, 2008 – The HAL Chorale Performs Again

Regional talk today is a continuation of the Ocean Liner story with some insights into the development of cruising today.

Today is the second passenger talent show and the final performance of the passenger choir. The choir has lost a few people from the first time I think due to the increased difficulty of the music. We end up with about 4 tenors, 10 basses, 8 altos and 20 sopranos (at least that’s what they think they are). I think it sounds OK but I’ll have to watch the rerun on TV tomorrow to be sure.

Entertainment tonight is Anne Frances, a song belter who grows on you as she makes her way through her show.

Day 64 – Friday, Nov 21, 2008 – The Captain’s Farewell Party

The regional talk today is on the sinking of the Titanic. Most of it we’ve heard before but our speaker has done some research into some of the principal characters in this drama and this adds some new information. And he is such a good storyteller that it makes the whole thing interesting.

The Captain’s Farewell Party (for the right side of the ship which includes us) is indeed better with a lesser number of people in one place at one time.

Tonight we compare thoughts on the best places we have visited. Sidney was the most fun, Singapore was the most beautiful and Shanghai the most impressive. Some of the places we visited such as Bali and Fiji were not their best “sides” so we did not see what many other visitors see when they visit those places.

Entertainment tonight is the Las Vegas Tenors.

Day 65 – Saturday, Nov 22, 2008 – Saying Goodbye to our New Friends

Our dinner tablemates have certainly made a great contribution to the success and enjoyment of this cruise for us. Alice and Tom, Lee and Char have provided laugh after laugh every evening. While we have also enjoyed their company at many other times during the cruise, the evening meal is our focal point where we compare tour activities and other events of the day which others of us may have missed.

Then there’s our Trivia team – Ed and Nancy, Ginny, Dave and Flo. None of us knew enough to ever win a contest but each made a contribution to the group’s attempts to do so. And we had fun doing it. Then there’s Don and Maryann that we sat near at many shows. And of course there’s ….. Actually we met more people on this cruise then on all our other cruises put together. Remember their names, though? Not from one day to the next.

Day 44 – Sunday Nov 2, 2008 – Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne is most certainly the commercial capital of Australia. Its huge bay is second in size only to the Bay of Bengal in India. In terms of ships seen, however, it doesn’t compare to Singapore as a world port. Today we skirt through the city on our way to the Dandenongs, the foothills of the Dividing Range of mountains which follows the east coast of Australia. The city is clean and modern and filled with Aussies from all over the country who have come to town for a week of racing culminating with the Melbourne Cup race next Tuesday. It is said that the entire country pauses to watch that race. We’ll see what happens in Sidney which is where we’ll be that day. The city boasts of the highest condominium in the world at 85 stories.

The rose gardens are abundant and in full bloom as we travel through the suburbs. Where we are headed has been a weekend retreat for Melbournians for centuries. As we start up the highlands, the rhododendrons are fantastic. Thirty-foot high bushes in profuse bloom are everywhere – purples, reds, whites, pinks and blues. They are offset by rows of red-leaved hedges. We stop at a little store where some of the local birds congregate to get a handout from visitors. Cockatoos, lorikeets, and parakeets come around to eat seed, provided by the tour guide, from our hands. The cockatoos are very picky and select only the black sunflower seeds from among the types available. One beautiful green and red parakeet selects a woman and sits on her had for about 10 minutes picking away. Next we go to an observation point where you can see the entire Melbourne area. Finally we hit one of the small villages which are mostly arts and craft stores these days.

We have a mishap along the way, however. The Ship’s representative on the tour is the first to step off the bus at the first stop and manages to break her foot. She gets it wrapped with an Ace bandage and elects to continue on the tour rather than get an ambulance and get it treated at a local hospital. The ship has xrays and such and can treat a small break she says.

Entertainment tonight is Lisa Donovan, a Broadway style song belter.

Melbourne – Cockatoo is obviously used to visitors.

Melbourne – Elaine spots a kookaburra bird in the forest. Another Australian icon.

Melbourne – From the Dandenongs looking back towards Melbourne. And just a small example of their spring rhododendron display.

Melbourne – Since we really didn’t visit the city itself, this is about the only shot we have of the city – from the ship look across the bow of the Star of Tasmania berthed next to us

Day 45 – Monday Nov 3, 2008 – Enroute to Sydney

We have two regional speakers today. A new one, Melvyn Foster is a retired biologist turned historian and gives us a compacted version of four talks on various aspects of Australia which have not been covered by other speakers in the program – Australia’s flora and fauna and their outlaws. The “bushrangers” are escaped convicts who terrorize the countryside. One, John Donahue, is called the Robin Hood of Australia for his sharing of his booty with the more needy in the area.

Dr Wolff’s talk is on Douglas MacArthur who, as the Commander in Chief of Operations in the Pacific Theater in WW II, had an impact on many of the countries we have/will visit. He discloses a number of facts and incidents that I was not aware of. For example when MacArthur was the Commander of US Forces, Far East, days before Dec 7, 1941, he secluded himself and would not allow the US Air Force commander to hanger and stagger his planes on the fields in Manila. Consequently the B-17’s on the ground there were completely destroyed days later when the Japanese attacked the Philippines. It’s as though he wanted (or was ordered) to allow that to happen.

Chorus practice picks up with three new songs in the medley – Rock and roll is here to Stay, Surfin’ USA and I Want to Hold Your Hand.. For some reason the Director declines to review the previous songs this time as he has always done before. And he changes these songs to be mostly unison with just a couple of harmony notes at the end. I think he recognizes the challenge of the previous song and makes it easy on himself (and us). The rhythms are hard enough to get through.

Hanna Starosta entertains us tonight on the violin with a nice selection of pieces from classics to bluegrass.

Day 46 – Tuesday Nov 4, 2008 – Sydney, Australia Day 1

We are berthed right in the heart of the city with the Harbour Bridge on one side of the ship and the Sidney Opera House on the other. From our dining room table we can see both through the floor to ceiling windows next to our table. Directly in front of the ship is the “old town” known as The Rocks. Today we tour the city of Sidney and the ritzy districts around the main Harbor. The Rocks is completely revamped from its bawdry and run-down water-front past and retains the buildings of that time but now sports boutiques, upscale pubs and other touristy things. Our tour takes us to Bondi beach, site of the 2000 Olympics Beach Volleyball venue (we’ll see the rest of the Olympic sites tomorrow). On the tour this morning we’ll see no homes or condos under $1M. Many different architectural styles are represented from true colonial, through Victorian, Art-deco and contemporary. All of these locations sit high on bluffs overlooking the Sidney Harbor. At the end we spend an hour touring the Sidney Opera House.

The Opera house is not only an architectural wonder (the original engineer selected to implement the design said it couldn’t be done) but it is a truly functional edifice as well. The building consists of six venues – three small theaters of less than 400 seats each and the Drama Theater, Concert Hall and Opera/Ballet Theater. We first go back stage where all six venues share a common area through which you can drive semi trucks inside to load/unload sets and then each has a smaller area off that central thoroughfare. Huge pulley systems line the ceilings to assist in moving things around. All of the venues are in constant use with over 2500 performances being conducted each year. The Drama Theater is set up for the night’s performance of The Pig Iron Family, a play about contemporary Australian family life. In the Concert Hall, sound checks are being made for a small private performance. The guide explains that this Hall is constructed entirely of wood with hardwoods on the side and soft woods on the ceilings and floors. Even the seats, which look plastic, are made of soft woods. Microphones are only needed for certain purposes such as solos or announcements. I’d bet the Fountain Singers would sound very good in here. We don’t get to go in the Opera Theater as the ballet company is setting up for its season debut in a few days.

The tour ends around 1:00PM so we decide to continue off on our own. A fleet of ferries docks just yards off the bow of the ship so we shop around and find one that will take us to the Taronga Zoo on the opposite side of the harbor. At the Zoo pier we take a bus up the hill to the Zoo entrance. The Zoo is nicely laid out (it is on the side of a fairly steep hill, but we start at the top and work our way down) and has different areas for animals of Australia, Africa and Asia. Of course we spend most of our time in “Wild Australia” and see almost every animal we’ve ever heard about and then some. The only thing we don’t see on the way is the platypus and we don’t feel like climbing back up the hill to pick it up. We do have our picture taken up close with a Koala and also get to see a mother and baby feeding on the eucalyptus. The koalas sleep about twenty hours a day so seeing one move is an unusual sight. The mother with the baby on her back moved quite quickly up and down the tree in search of tender leaves. When the ferry comes back to pick us up they must go to a stop out near the harbor entrance so along the way and back we get another view of the harbor and explanations of the various sights. They bring us back and under the Harbor Bridge before dropping us off next to our ship. This was an unexpected tour and complemented our morning tour.

Entertainment tonight is the remake of the movie South Pacific with Harry Connick Jr. We skip that to rest up for tomorrow’s day-long tour of the Sidney countryside.

Sydney – The first thing we see off the port side of our docked ship is the Sydney Opera House

Sydney – And to starboard, the Harbour Bridge.

Sydney – The colonial buildings of The Rocks contrast with the modern Sidney skyline.

Sydney – Koala doing it’s usual thing, sleeping, at the Toronga Zoo

Sydney – However, this Koala mother and baby on her back were quite active climbing the eucalyptus tree looking for the leaves to eat.

Day 47 – Wednesday Nov 5, 2008 – Sidney, Australia Day 2

This morning we are off to the Blue Mountains, a spur of the Great Dividing Range of mountains which follows the east coast of Australia. Our bus takes us through the west side of Sidney which is where the average people live. We drive down through Darling Harbor and Chinatown, across the ANZAC bridge and out into the suburbs. First stop is the Olympic Village and venues from the 2000 Olympics held here in Sidney. The venues have all been reused by the locals for their particular sports and the parking ramps are pretty full of cars even for a weekday morning. Our guide tells us the the Olympic village consisted of three type of housing for the athletes – Town homes, condos and individual “knock-down” homes. To help finance the Olympics, both the townhomes and condos were sold to locals before the Olympics and then leased back to house the Olympians. The buyers took residence when the Olympics were over. The individual homes were dissembled after the games and then were sold and re-erected on owners lots. Everybody won on this deal.

Once in the Mountains we stopped at the site of the “Three Sisters” three sandstone buttes covered in myth by the Aborigines. The mountains are not all that high (3000 ft) but are characterized by sheer cliffs. At the base of the cliffs are temperate rainforests kept watered by the sandstone which soaks up water when it rains and then releases it slowly over the years. At a nearby location we utilize some unique forms of transportation left over from an old coal mining operation to visit the rainforest. At the top of a cliff we board a gondola which is lowered by cables to the valley floor below. After a short trek through the rainforest we come to a “railroad” which goes up the cliff at a 52% angle (that’s almost vertical). Both of these, with different conveyances perhaps, were used to get coal and miners up and down the cliffs. We stop at a little village in the mountains, Leura, which is mostly cafes and craft stores for lunch. We select a little café, The Wayzgoose Café, and have some fish dishes which are very tasty. Elaine gets potato wedges with hers which are deep fried like French fries but are served with sour cream and a sweet chile sauce – very different and quite good. Elaine says this is the first place we’ve been that she would consider living in. All in all a very good day and the tour guide was just excellent. Along the way he had stories, recited poetry (e.g. The Man From Snowy River) and offered suggestions for further reading or viewing. On the way back from the mountains the guide announces that Obama has won the election and McCain has conceded. The right side of the bus cheers and the left side sits in silence. I wish Obama all the luck in the world and hope he is a great success.

No entertainment tonight. I guess they think we’ve had enough for the day. We sail for New Caledonia.

Sydney – These are typical examples of the Blue Mountains with the steep cliffs and the temperate rainforest at the bottom.

Sydney – We rode down the canyon wall into the rainforest in a large gondola supported by cables.

Sydney – Down in the rainforest with The Three Sisters rock formation in the background

Sidney – To get back up to the canyon rim, we rode the train. The wire netting on the top has a two fold purpose – to keep from being hit by falling rocks and to keep the rider from tumbling out when the train reaches near vertical. I had to keep my knees up on that round black rubber rail you see at the top of the seats ahead to keep from being thrown into the next seat. There are no seatbelts. It moved at about 20 MPH up the cliff.

Day 48 – Thursday Nov 6, 2008 – Up the East Coast of Australia

We’ll be heading northeast for the next few days, away from Australia and into the Coral Sea. It’s a little rough as we are crossing through the East Australia current which runs north to south at a good pace. The ship doesn’t bounce about very much but shudders a lot.

We get a new regional speaker, another biologist, but a marine biologist this time since we will be at sea more of the time from now on. Unfortunately he spends the entire talk running through the phyla and classes of the flora and fauna he will be talking about and turns most people off as they don’t care that a crab is a crustacean and not an echinoderm. I’m sure he’ll get better later (I hope).

Dr Wolff returns to talk about Antarctica and the Shackelton Expedition and how they survived their ill-fated journey in their quest of the south pole.

Entertainment tonight is “Black Tie”, an Australian quartet of two singing brothers and their wives who play the piano and cello. Our fellow passengers advise us not to miss them as they are the funniest team this side of Calcutta (or something like that). They play it pretty straight and don’t do much funny stuff; so it’s just another good musical show. They will be on again in a few days and may change their motif.

Day 49 – Friday Nov 7, 2008 - A Really Lazy Day at Sea

For the first time since we sailed from Seattle, passengers are walking around with blank stares on their faces wondering what to do. For some reason there are no talks scheduled this morning. We have three regional speakers on board all vying for stage time and nobody is scheduled? There’s always the casino, the pool, eternal card games and the sports games to consider. The first activity we care about is Trivia at noon. Have you noticed I haven’t mentioned Trivia for a long time? We go every day we are at sea but our team always comes in second, often because we couldn’t agree with what turned out to be the right answer. We each write down our answer on scrap paper (best guess in most cases) and show each other. The majority rules on the answer we end up with. But we’ve improved over time and the objective is to have fun, and we do.

The regional speaker talks about women pirates. Everybody’s heard of Anne Bonny and Mary Read but he also talks about Irish and Chinese lady pirates who were even more successful at it if not as well known. Interesting, but not as relevant to our cruise as we’d like. But today we are desperate!

The slots are being more kind lately and let us play for awhile before they take all our money. The other day I put in a dollar and ran it up to $50 (Big Deal, you say? But it was a penny machine!). I had to go to choir practice so I turned the machine over to Elaine at $35 and she gave me back $10 later. Hey, that’s a 1000% return and I was happy, and she got to play for several hours on that dollar. Cheap entertainment in my book.

People are getting a little bored with the cruise I think. There’re more complaints about the sameness of the menu each night, for example. It’s true that each night they generally only have beef, pork, chicken, fish, seafood, pasta, lamb, meat/seafood salad and vegetarian entrees to choose from each evening along with the seven appetizers, three soups and three salads (and 12 desserts). But what else would you want? On formal nights they might spice up the menu with surf and turf, king crab legs, beef wellington or rack of lamb. Last night they had kangaroo and emu besides. It is true that sometimes you’ll get a dish that’s not cooked properly but just send it back and get a good one or get something else if you don’t like what you ordered originally. I’m not complaining as the service and food remains at high quality in my opinion.

Entertainment tonight is singer/pianist Mark Newsome. He’s good enough to keep all but three people there through his performance.

Day 50 – Saturday Nov 8, 2008 – New Caledonia, Territory of France

A beautiful day in the South Pacific. Hot, but cooled by sea breezes. New Caledonia is a fairly large island. Its main claim to fame was as headquarters of the American Army in WWII. None of those wooden edifices remain as they were destroyed by termites years ago. Our first tour today takes us out to the island’s fringing reef in a glass bottom boat. We see all kinds of coral fishes and invertebrates – one of the best fish viewing sessions we’ve ever been on. The guide tells us this reef extends around the southern tip of the island where Noumea located. During a second tour in the afternoon we see the Barrier Reef further out (no good pictures of this) and are told this reef extends over 900 miles on the west side of the island and is second only to the Great Barrier Reef of Australia in size. On this second tour we ride a little train on wheels through the town and around the perimeter of the peninsula it sits on. Noumea reminds us of Florida. Everywhere we go people wave and cars honk. The guide says that the New Caledonians remain grateful to the Americans for saving their country from the Japanese. Perhaps the extra income we bring in doesn’t hurt either. The seas and islands around Noumea are certainly the most beautiful we have seen anywhere in the world.

Entertainment tonight is a rerun of the last ship’s singers and dancers show – returned by popular request, they say. I’ll bet. I don’t plan to go on general principles. Every show so far has at least been different if not the greatest. Boo to repeats, I say. Besides, I found out today the reason for the paucity of things to do yesterday was that the Deck 7 passengers (suites and penthouses) got a special entertainment show of the ship’s singers and dancers AND the Black Tie group yesterday morning. And we thought there were no “classes” on this ship. On the other hand, they paid at least five times as much as we did for this cruise; maybe they deserve something extra – but not at our expense!

I guess I’m getting a bit crabby too. Elaine and I both agree that while we are still having fun, this is a longer cruise than we what would plan for in the future. We are still young enough (I hope) to see more places and do more things over a longer period of time. This was the right thing to do at the right time. And we still look forward to our next port. But even though we check our email every other day or so, we haven’t heard but from a few of our friends and family throughout the trip and we miss you.

New Caledonia – Although we could see hundreds of fishes, getting pictures of them is a different matter. This shows (really it does) a school of blue damsels and yellow angel fish. But we saw triggers, parrotfish, wrasses, rays, morays, clowns, groupers, snappers, starfish and turtles just in the 45 minutes we were over the reef.

New Caledonia – This is the Shrine of Our Lady of the Pacific. The halo lights up in neon at night. How French!

New Caledonia – No mere picture can truly relate the beauty of the South Pacific. The sea, the islands and the clouds combine to form an ideal of what life should be like for all of us. I know life is not really idyllic here, but one can dream, can’t one? See those little white lines in the water close to land? Those are the fringing reefs.

New Caledonia – From here you can see some of the beaches that surround this island. For my beach-loving friends – you should consider a visit to this sunning paradise. You have your choice of main island beaches or off-shore beaches. It beats the hell out of Mexico. Margaritas or Pernoud, your choice.

New Caledonia – Alongside the ship we are treated to a New Caledonian folkloric dance exhibition prior to sailing. While I thought we were in Melanesia where the native peoples were supposedly very dark skinned, these people appear to be more like the Maori of New Zealand who are Polynesian.

Day 38 – Monday Oct 27, 2008 – Another Rough Day At Sea

As we enter Australian waters, the heavy swells continue but ship life goes on unimpeded. Looking toward shore we can see what looks like white caps on the horizon. We find out that this is Western Australia’s barrier reefs. Not as long or unbroken as the Great Barrier Reef in the east, these reefs extend for miles along the coast.

The regional talk today covers the plight of the aborigines and their civil rights. Unlike the similar situations of the Native Americans, Aborigines never signed treaties and were never treated as a “nation” or any kind of organized peoples. They were treated more like the blacks freed by the Emancipation Proclamation but, unlike the blacks, were provided no means to own land or acquire any kind of citizenship status. They were foreigners in their own land. And this lasted well into the 20^th Century. It wasn’t until 1967 that the Aborigines began to be recognized as a people.

The chorus rehearsal today is tough as we move into a song that is SATB and only a few of the men have actually sung tenor and bass parts before or even know what they sing. The guy next to me decided to sing the tenor part but an octave lower. The voices are not seated together either as there has been no need in the past with all the men singing the same part. So it gets interesting when the Director puts all the voices together. But it is good enough for him so at least a couple of the voices must have got each part right.

We dine at the special restaurant, Pinnacle Grill, tonight. This restaurant, for a $20 surcharge, serves prime cut meats and offers special service. Although the food is good, they serve too much food. Elaine has a Porterhouse Steak (18 oz is the smallest) and I have Steak Diane (two 7 oz beef tenderloins). We don’t eat more than 6 oz. of meat normally.

What another Banjo player tonight? Oh, it’s a tenor banjo player and he has only four strings on his banjo which means he can’t play as many different types of songs as the five string banjo player we had a few weeks back. He can’t play country-western tunes, for example. Not many stay for his performance but he is good and we stick it out and talk to him a bit afterwards as he exits the theater which is where we find out these additional tidbits about the instrument. Most passengers are complaining about the plethora of musicians versus comedians or other acts but we don’t feel that way. Most cruises we’ve been on have an overabundance of jugglers and good live music of any kind is more to our tastes.

Day 39 – Tuesday Oct 28, 2008 – The Roughest Day

The ship is pushed up and down and rolled from side to side as well as being shaken like a martini. Even the veterans have trouble maintaining their balance today. The speakers hang on to their podiums for dear life. The waiters wait for what feels like a pause in the movement to place drinks on the table – sometimes they get it right and sometimes they don’t. Dancing is severely curtailed but there are still a few diehards that get out there and stumble around the dance floor. Bad news though. At one of the ill-planned on-deck activities a woman falls and breaks her hip. Her trip will probably be over in our next port, Perth. I went up to the event but decided not to stay when I saw how bouncy it was and you had to stand around to wait your turn. Didn’t look like fun to me.

Dr Wolf talks about the population of Australia from the convicts sent there from England after England lost its American colonies for that purpose and then from the inrush of gold miners in the mid-1800’s. Convicts once sent there would be forced to stay even after their sentences were complete. This made sense for the male convicts who were most often repeat offenders or political opponents of the Crown. Female convicts were often just first time offenders, however. Most of the major cities, except Adelaide, were first built by convict labor but run by British aristocrats who came and stayed to increase their fortunes.

Our entertainment tonight is – you guessed it didn’t you? – another musician. This time a Romanian pianist who plays a mean jazz piano. A medley of Gershwin tunes is my favorite but he also entertains with the piano accordion and his own invention called the Draculaphone. This is a jumpsuit outfitted with tuned “pipes” operated like bicycle horns with a ball. He had one on each shoulder which he played with the sides of his head, on his arms and legs which he operated by flexing the limb and on his chest which he played with his hands. With this contraption he belted out a decent version of the William Tell Overture.

Day 40 – Wednesday Oct 29, 2008 – Perth, Australia

Our first stop in Australia is Perth, capital of the State of Western Australia and site of one of the last goldrush sites. This city of 2.5 million people comprises 90% of the entire population of the State with most of them arriving in this area since the 1960’s. So the city is quite new in its build-out and has the look of a central or northern California city with its brick or stucco-ed buildings with tiled roofs. We visit the Yanchep National Park, a wildlife reserve for kangaroos, koalas, and many type of birds such as parakeets and cockatoos. A genuine aborigine shows us to tools and methods they had used for thousands of years to survive in this harsh country. Because Australia was so isolated from the rest of the world, nothing changed much there and so there was no need for the aborigines to change much either. Perth’s coastal climate is very much like central Florida hitting freezing once or twice a winter but generally warm to hot most of the time. The city sports many green parks and water impoundments often populated with flocks of black swans and various ducks. This is a very pretty and clean town with good free or cheap public transportation (e.g. busses are free and a round trip ride on the rail system is $2 US.

Our passenger with the broken hip disembarks here. We don’t hear what happens to her after that. I would expect at least some hospital stay before she flies home to wherever. This is the fourth passenger to leave the tour for medical reasons we are told. We knew of the one that was helicoptered off shortly after Seattle but we didn’t even hear of the other two until now.

Finally an impressionist for entertainment, Sean O’Shea – alright he does impersonate singers but at least he’s good for a few laughs. Gets right out in the audience too. A couple of audience members who had dozed off were rudely awakened as they became part of the act. He had no mercy.

Perth – The simple lean-to hut of an aborigine is used to show the shields and spears of the warrior plus the digeredoo (sp?) with the white bottom which is used to make the strange tones and whirring sounds used for dancing.

Perth – Our aborigine lecturer demonstrates sand paintings used by the aborigines to tell stories and pass on lore.

Perth – The skyline of Perth loom above the Swan River as seen from the King’s Park lookout

Perth – A few of the black swans and other water fowl at one of the city parks

Day 41 – Thursday Oct 30, 2008 – Seas Calm Down

After we leave Perth the swells become less frequent and more predictable. As we round the southwestern point of Australia and turn east towards Melbourne, the sea smoothes out a bit more, still rocky but tolerable. This is Australia’s Southern Ocean. The Captain tells us this eastern arm of the Indian Ocean is something to behold in winter as the waves frequently reach 100 feet or more.

Dr Jay’s regional talk covers the WW I battle of Gallipoli, and Australia’s involvement in that terrible waste of human life. Over ten thousand Aussies and New Zealanders gave their lives in this battle with Turkish troops near Istanbul over the entrance to the Black Sea that was lost due to the inability of British Commanders to give the order to advance to the high ground. In Perth we had seen the obvious impact of this fiasco with the number of memorials to this battle and their fallen citizens. Hundreds of individual trees (this was a relatively small city back then) had been planted with plaques bearing the name of a fallen soldier on each one. I suspect we will see even greater impacts in Melbourne and Sidney in memory of his battle.

Ooops, Elaine has a problem when the tip of her hearing aid is missing when she removes the thing and apparently stays in her ear. I can’t see it and don’t care to poke around so down to the Medical Center we go. Nurse says “Yes there’s something grey in there but it’s down too deep for me to get it. Come back at 5:00PM and see the doctor.” Doctor extracts “foreign object” and charges $80. Cheap enough since in our experience one simple pill may cost $10 each in a ship’s dispensary. Supposedly our Medigap insurance covers foreign travel. I hope this incident is the only test we have to make of this feature.

The ship’s singers and dancers treat us to another Las Vegas Review tonight singing and dancing to the best tunes of Sinatra, Dino, Sammy Davis, Wayne Newton, Tom Jones, Englebert and others. It is one of their best shows yet.

Day 42 – Friday Oct 31, 2008 – Halloween At Sea

Today is another milestone in the voyage in that we have completed 2/3 of the trip both in time and distance traveled. We have sailed 12,800 miles with about 8000 more to go. After turning our clocks BACK one hour twelve times in the past 42 days, we turn our clocks AHEAD one hour for the first time on the cruise indicating we are heading east towards home. But no one is sad as we still have places to go and things to see on the way.

The regional talk today is on another famous battle which greatly affected Australia’s place in the world – the WW II Battle of the Coral Sea. In early 1942, the Japanese were planning their next objective in their quest to dominate that part of the Pacific with the invasion of Australia. Both the British and Australian forces in the area had been decimated in the defense of Hong Kong, Singapore and other British interests in south Asia. Only a small, inexperienced US carrier force formed in the Coral Sea stood between the Japanese invasion fleet from their captured islands in the Dutch East Indies and the coast of northern Australia. But, through a series of unfortunate circumstances for the Japanese, their fleet was forced to retreat for the first time, which began a set of retreats that ended with the fall of Japan in 1945.

The cruise line encourages costumes and revelry on this occasion by sponsoring contests and the Boo Ball. Both the crew and the passengers go all out to best each other on costumes for the evening. There are rajahs and phantoms, pirates and wenches, witches and wizards. But the Boo Ball is a noisy, overcrowded dance party which again lasts about an hour.

Halloween At Sea – Just a few of the many costumes seen at dinner.

Day 43 – Saturday Nov 1, 2008 – Another Chorus Rehearsal

A lot of people sleep in today (us too!) as the popular activities don’t start until 11:00AM. So it’s breakfast in the Lido Buffet. This is actually more than a buffet in that you can have eggs to order as well as a separate omelet bar. And the breakfast offerings are even more extensive than what’s offered in the dining room in terms of fruit, breads, rolls, donuts and such.

Dr Wolf talks today about the Royal Flying Doctor Service, how it got started and how it evolved into the unique medical team coverage of the extensive Outback reaches of Australia. The services provided include radios for remote hamlets and stations (ranches) that are hundreds of miles from nowhere who can communicate with central radio stations who monitor the frequencies 24/7. The Service started with volunteer pilots after WW I but now owns their own fleet of planes outfitted as emergency rooms to treat and/or evacuate persons as needed.

Well the chorus members have forgotten their difficult harmony parts in the “How High the Moon” segment and the Director has to repeat the note learning phase. It gets better and we move on to “Rock Around the Clock” and “Nothin’ But a Hound Dog. That goes much better.

It’s good to be back in the dining room tonight. One of our tablemates has a birthday tonight and the waiters bring her a cake and get a group together to sing “Happy Birth day” and its Indonesian equivalent.

Entertainment is encores by the banjo player, the jazz pianist and the funny comic, with new material of course. Another good show.

Day 32 – Tuesday Oct 21, 2008 – Next stop, Singapore

Whew, made it through three days of touring in Thailand. We are beat. But this is a busy day so there’s no slowing down. It’s choral concert day! All of the HAL Chorale’s hard work (4 rehearsals) will now bear its fruit (or not). At the last rehearsal one of the participants pointed out that the men were not holding a note long enough. The conductor explained that this was just one of many anomalies between the written music and what we were actually singing and that these would have to be ignored as there was no time to fix them. Today at dress rehearsal the conductor initially lined up the choir (no risers) with the sopranos in the back, then altos and then the men. When the women complained and tried to readjust the group the conductor told them “Look, I do this for a living, trust me”. He then explained that his first goal was a good choral sound and he would worry about the rest next. We ended up in a mishmash of voices with some altos moving to the front and some men moving back. Evidently he got what he wanted because everybody said we sounded “wonderful”. I’m hoping they’ll replay the performance on TV so I can hear what we sounded like. They will not give us the recording. We will only lose three members at Singapore so our next concert at the end of the cruise may be even better.

The concert is actually the finale to the Passenger Talent Show. Ahead of us are twelve acts limited to three minutes each – singers, comedians, pianists and a solo ping pong act are the headliners. Quite good too.

Entertainment is early tonight because the entertainers are getting off in Singapore. We get to see the entertainers we missed last week – two singers and a comedian all of whom are very good. Elaine doesn’t feel like sitting through six courses tonight so we head up to the Lido deck at the last minute to see how that is. They have tables set up for dinner just like in the dinning room. You order the entrée and they bring that to the table but everything else - appetizer, soup, salad and dessert - is buffet style. So it’s just a little downscale from the dining room.

Day 33 – Wednesday Oct 22, 2008 – Singapore and Halfway Point

Singapore’s the halfway point through the cruise. We’ve done 10 ports in 32 days prior to Singapore and have 10 ports in the next 32 days to come. It has been a great cruise so far. The weather could not have been any better, we have been wined and dined in absolutely fabulous style and kept entertained day and night. The casino does not treat me well but that is my only complaint.

Singapore has to be one of the most beautiful of the cities/countries in Asia. A former British colony but an independent state for over 40 years, Singapore is a completely planned and renovated area of several hundred square miles on 63 islands. Our tour guide tells us that everything must be imported – food, water, even people as the 6 million residents are not enough to support construction and services needed by the city. One of my neighbors in Florida described this as the most boring city in the world because it is so ordered and well managed that nothing ever happens here. Its economy is supported by tourism and its oil refinery industry which is the third largest in the world although they have no oil resources themselves. The city is covered with greenery and flowers. We visit Mt Faber which overlooks the city and the harbor, followed by the National Orchid Garden which covers acres of orchid and bromeliad plants displayed in natural surroundings. I see some plants which closely resemble the orchids which grow in my palm trees at home and I am homesick for about 5 seconds. We drive through Little India, Arab Street and stop in Chinatown for some shopping. Prices are not as low as in the other countries we have visited but the selection of merchandise is astounding. Adjacent to the cruise terminal is a large shipping arcade with hundreds of upscale boutiques and stores. I don’t think there is anything made anywhere in the world that can’t be found in Singapore.

After the tour we stop on the Lido deck for pizza and beer. This ship makes very good pizza and has three varieties available all day long. It’s cool enough today to eat out on deck and enjoy the sights of the busy harbor (the busiest in the world with hundreds of ships anchored in the outer harbor waiting to load or unload).

Ready for a nap we lie down only to be quickly awakened by a call from the Purser’s office that our election materials have caught up with us from Hong Kong. It is now 4:30PM and the ship sails at 5:00PM so I rush down pick up the materials and bring them back to the room to complete. If they don’t get mailed back from Singapore today, they might not make it in time to be counted. When I get back to the room I find that only my absentee ballot is there along with candidate advertisements for both of us. So I complete mine and rush back to the Purser’s Office to mail it. They say it will get out today. I suppose Elaine’s ballot will show up in Sydney on November 5. No, I didn’t get our ballot for the HOA elections back home yet either.

Our harpist returns for a reprise tonight and we get through half of it before nodding off. Harp music and tired people just don’t go together.

Singapore – Vanda Orchids, just one of the many varieties and displays

Singapore – Another alcove of beautiful things in Singapore

Singapore – The MerLion, adopted symbol/mascot of Singapore

Singapore – A typical Sidewalk planting. The city is full of flowers.

Day 34 – Thursday Oct 23, 2008 – Sailing Through Indonesia

Today we cross the equator into the Southern Hemisphere. The Captain announces he is delaying the Poseidon ceremony until our next crossing on the way back. I think this is to avoid having a second ceremony for the passengers scheduled to join the cruise in Sidney. The lifeboat drill scheduled for this morning is also cancelled due to rainy weather. It clears up around noon so outdoor activities continue.

Our new regional speaker is an Australian college professor who specializes in certain tribes of Australian Aborigines. She is one of those college professors who present lots of information without a care as to maintaining the interest of the audience. Take copious notes because there may be a pop quiz. Where is our storyteller? He promised us the real scoop on “Anna and the King of Siam” which, he says, is quite different from the book and musical play. Maybe tomorrow?

The port talk today is on Bali. Our headwaiter is Balinese and has been telling us of things to see on his island. Each day I wear a lapel pin of the flag of the nation we are traveling to or currently in. This morning I wore the Indonesian flag for the first time and several of the other waiters noticed it and stopper to talk about their country. Bali is quite different from the rest of Islamic Indonesia in that its religion is primarily Hindu with some notions of Buddhism thrown in. Our port speaker describes the Balinese as a gentle people whose lives are focused on their religion and on the harmony of their environment. The island is a popular retreat for much of Southeast Asia and particularly Australians who have invested much in the resorts which continue to grow here.

Another formal dinner tonight. I sure am getting the use out of my tux on this trip. It still fits too.

Day 35 – Friday Oct 24, 2008 – Through the Java Sea, Almost to Bali

Our storyteller comes through as promised with his talk on the real story of Anna Leonowens and the King of Siam. He divulges that everything written by or about Anna is pure fiction. Even her name is made up. The real person was Anne Owens who was simply a teacher of English to the court children of Siam. She had no communication with King Rama IV but did teach Crown Prince Chulalonghorn his English. Her son Louis on the other hand became very involved in Siam and started an import/export that still exists today.

Entertainment tonight is Marty Brill a veteran comic who does a nice job of hitting on the poignant points of travel and cruising. One of the passengers who saw his first show earlier this evening and came back to see it again says he put on two completely different shows – very unusual!

Day 36 – Thursday Oct 25, 2008 – Bali, Indonesia

We anchor off the eastern shore of Bali and tender in to the shallow piers of this ferry port. The Bali government supposedly gave incentives to HAL to visit this port rather than the more popular port in the resort area of Bali. This is actually good in that we will get to see a more rural view of this very different island.

The area is characterized by family units walled in by a 3-4 foot high stone wall. Within the lot there may be three or more concrete/stucco white buildings with red tile roofs having ornate corners pointing upward. At the rear of each lot is a set of 5 or more small temples honoring the Hindu gods. For this reason our guide says that Bali can claim having more than 1 million temples on the island. We first visited an ancient temple site where a Barong Dance was performed. This is a kind of opera depicting the battle between good and evil. For a change we were given a playbill which described each of the six acts so we knew exactly what was going on. Then we went on to a latge public Hindu temple and after that had a very nice Balinese lunch at a hotel perched on the rim of the caldera of an ancient volcano which overlooked a dormant volcano, Mt. Batur. We sat on the covered verandah of the dining room and while eating we had a cooling downpour which fortunately came straight down so we did not get wet. After lunch we hit the shopping sites for local paintings, woodcarvings and batik fabrics. Needless to say we bought some batiks but no paintings or woodcarvings. This is certainly one of the most picturesque spots we have visited so far. This 5 hour tour has turned into an 8 hour one and we enjoy it.

Tonight the Ship’s Band puts on a show for us featuring the instruments of the band. They feature contemporary jazz numbers on the piano, drums, guitar, sax, bass and keyboard with a latin number on the bongos.

Bali – The “stage” of the Barong Dance. The figures dressed in red and black and white checkered cloth are stone monkeys. The actors enter from the blue and gold doors at the top of the steps and come down to the grassy area at the bottom of the steps to perform their parts.

Bali – One of the many shrines within the Hindu Temple. The Hindu believes in one god but that one god has three main manifestations – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Our guide says it is equivalent to the Trinity in Christianity. However, the Balinese version of Hinduism expands this to ten manifestations, one for each of the eight compass directions (e.g. N, NE, E, etc.) plus up and down.

Bali – From the verandah of the hotel we ate at, we could see the peak of the active volcano, Mt. Batur which last erupted in 1963.

Bali – A typical Balinese family complex. My waiter says this would house probably twelve people with perhaps two brothers and their families plus their parents.

Day 37 – Sunday Oct 26, 2008 - Into the Indian Ocean

South of Bali we enter the Indian Ocean heading for Perth, Australia. Seas are a bit rougher here and the Captain says we can expect this for the next few days. Seems there is a strong current flowing south from here and it is being perturbed by a strong wind blowing north. The Aussies on board say wait till we get south of Australia which can be quite rough this time of the year and chilly since they are just coming out of their winter months.

Today we have two talks on the Australian Aborigines, one covering their history and one covering their art. Entertainment by an operatic soprano is presented early tonight due to special activities following dinner.

Another formal night is followed by a Ball at 10:00PM which turns out to be almost civilized as less than half of the passengers attend (past most people’s bedtimes). The dancing lasts over an hour (now it’s past the band’s bedtime) and by 11:15PM the ship is quiet. I‘m told that a few people are still having fun in the bar on top of the ship but I’m not sure I believe it and I’m too tired to go find out for sure.

Aboard the Amsterdam – The entrance to the Dining Room is decorated for the formal Red and Black Ball, celebrating completion of our passage through Asia. Passengers are encouraged to wear the oriental finery and jewelry they purchased.